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Monday, March 16, 2015

R. L. Stine’s Twitter Story

In October of 2012 R. L.
Stine the author of the wildly popular children’s horror stories series--Goosebumps--gave his followers on
Twitter an extra treat.

On the 31st he
sent 13 entertaining tweets one after another between 12:49 PM and 1:02 PM. In
these tweets he managed to share a complete jump story.

The way he separated this
story out turns some parts of his tale into cliffhangers. However, to make this story easier to read I have kept the endings of each sentence together.

Here are his 13 tweets put together:

His story is about a vengeful
farmer--

Here is a Halloween story for
kids. If you read it aloud, the last line should be shouted.

A farmer named Ferris had
bare fields. He didn’t know what to plant. One night, walking on a dark country
road, he saw an old farmer planting seeds in a
field. The old farmer introduced himself: “My name is Yost. It rhymes with
ghost. He said he planted pumpkin seeds every year for Halloween. Ferris waited till the old man went to his watering hose. Then he stole all the
seeds, He didn’t wait till morning. He planted the seeds in his
field as fast as he could. Soon, Ferris watched the pumpkin vines sprout and
grow long. He began to feel guilty. “How
could I steal that man’s seeds? I must go apologize.” He walked down the
country road but he couldn’t find the
old man’s farm. Another farmer came by on a tractor. He said, “No one has
farmed that land for 100 years. Its been abandoned since
they buried a crazy old farmer there.” Ferris went back to his farm. The vines
were thick and long. That night he heard strange moans and groans from his field. A big fall moon sent cold light down
over the vines. The vines seemed to slither on the
ground like snakes. As he walked, they curled around his ankles. They started
to tighten. Ferris kicked at them. He tried to free himself. But the vines strangled Ferris and pulled him into the dirt. “Why? Why did you
do this to me?” Ferris cried.And the old farmer
replied, “Because my name is Yost--and it rhymes with GHOST!”

The last word in this tale is shouted because it is a jump story. This means it
startles the listener-- making them jump.

I share a ghost Jump Story
that Mark Twain told on stage here. And here is another one told to a group of
tourists on a ghost tour in London.